Desperate Characters

Description

Sophie and Otto Bentwood are a childless, upper-middle-class couple whose Brooklyn brownstone and professional lives suggest stability. Over one long weekend, that appearance begins to fracture. A stray cat bites Sophie, and her fear of rabies becomes an obsessive measure of dangers she can neither confirm nor dismiss. Otto, meanwhile, is consumed by the hostile breakup of his law partnership, while Sophie’s inadvertent disclosure of an affair threatens their marriage. Disturbances around their homes deepen the sense that private and public order are failing together. The novel builds suspense from accumulating unease, turning an apparently manageable injury into a stark examination of marital estrangement, social anxiety, and lives poised to implode.

Themes